"Difficult" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be very difficult to persuade oneself that this thunderstorm would have meant exactly the same thing if it had occurred at the beginning of "Caliban upon Setebos." It does not mean the same thing, but something very different; and the deduction from this is the curious fact that Browning ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... over that same matter. It seems difficult to know what to do. Of course you can let Corporal Overton see that he has your confidence, Mr. Prescott. You may assure him, at any time, that he also has mine, if you think that will do him any good. But the only thing that will actually clear up the matter will be the discovery of the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... destruction from the presence of God," and the idea of utter annihilation in such passages as "burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." There is much in favor of it but there is much in Scripture which makes it difficult to accept it. And it contradicts straight out the wide-spread Christian belief in the essential immortality of the soul (though that belief also needs to be examined). At any rate it cannot claim authority as a theory of ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... distresses into which this King was involved through the misconduct and Cruelty of his Parliament, I shall satisfy myself with vindicating him from the Reproach of Arbitrary and tyrannical Government with which he has often been charged. This, I feel, is not difficult to be done, for with one argument I am certain of satisfying every sensible and well disposed person whose opinions have been properly guided by a good Education—and this Argument is ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... he went slowly over the bridge, forgetting that he ought to have thanked the toll taker for a free passage. The world seemed to him very difficult. How had Findelkind done when he had come to bridges?—and, oh, how had Findelkind done when he ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... Falconer were rivals, with a new phase of rivalry. In some of their variations of feeling, each wished the other success; the latter, because he struggled against a spell that grew more and more difficult to be resisted; the former, because he had been suddenly overpowered by the same kind of light that had shone from the statue of Pygmalion. Thus their rivalry, such as it was, was entirely without animosity, and in no way disturbed the ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... number of those who take pains to investigate the nature of the soul is very small, not even one in a hundred. And even the few who do undertake to examine this subject are hindered by various circumstances from arriving at the truth. The matter itself is difficult and requires long preparation and preliminary knowledge. Then the vicissitudes of life and the shortness of its duration, coupled with the natural indolence of man when it comes to study, completely account for the lack of true knowledge on this ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... all ninnies," Ruby decided as she dropped the blind; "and I thank the fates that framed me female and priced me high. Heigho! but it's a difficult world for women. Either a man thinks you an angel, and then you know him for a fool, or he sees through you and won't marry you for worlds. If we behaved like that, men would fare badly, I reckon. Zeb loved me till ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that ever was invented. If there were no Christ, or if the Christ that was, was not like what the Gospels paint Him as being, then the authors of these little booklets are consummate geniuses, and their works stand at the very top of the imaginative literature of the world. It is more difficult to account for the Gospels, if they are not histories, than it is to account for the Christ whom they tell ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... more how things are going, and where, no doubt, they reckon upon obtaining posts of importance and increased possessions under the new order of things. Therefore, I think, they, as well as the Sepoys, are likely, if they find the task longer and more difficult than they expect, to be ready to grant terms. I have no great faith in native oaths. ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... the scientists who explain things on the assumption that we know nearly as much as they do and those who explain things on the assumption that we know nothing, it is very difficult for you and me to persevere in our original determination to learn something. But I have always felt that Sir RAY LANKESTER is one of the very few who do understand us, and I feel it still more strongly now that I have read his Secrets of Earth and Sea (METHUEN). He is instructive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... by what you write, and should have done what you demand, were the letter not, as it happens, from Romans, for whom the making of promises is easy, but the fulfilment of the promises in deed most difficult and beyond hope, especially if you sanction the agreement by any oaths. We, therefore, despairing in view of your deception, have been compelled to come before you in arms, and as for you, my dear Romans, consider ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... Toza fell into the water, but was rescued by his guide. There was still no alarm from the castle as daylight began to break. As it grew more light they both crawled into a cave which had a low opening difficult to find, and there Paulo gave the brigand his breakfast, which he took from a little bag slung by a ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... official exhibits by states, cities and foreign nations, and the emphasis laid on industrial and vocational education, public health, playgrounds, and the training of abnormal children. An educational exhibit is one of the most difficult to make vivid and interesting to the general public. This palace has succeeded by avoiding duplication. To each state or city was assigned a special problem, as far as possible the one to which it ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... their names. The Russians did very little with Alaska, and after a hundred years or more they decided that they did not want it, for it was separated from the rest of the Empire by a stormy sea, and in time of war would be difficult to protect. So they offered to sell it to the United States. But nothing came of it then, and for some years the matter dropped, for the war came and blotted out all thoughts ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... it must be said that most Chinese translators fall short of our standards of accuracy. In early times when grammars and dictionaries were unknown the scholarly rendering of foreign books was a difficult business, for professional interpreters would usually be incapable of understanding a philosophic treatise. The method often followed was that an Indian explained the text to a literary Chinese, who recast the explanation in his own language. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... It was difficult, because the thing had come upon Furnival like a madness. He would have had more chance if he had been a man with a talent or an absorbing occupation, a politician, an editor, a journalist; if he had even been, Brocklebank lamented, on the London Borough Council it might ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... determination had arisen on the part of the odious despot to break off the marriage of the lovely girl with the young soldier whom it was well known that she fondly loved, and to have her the wife of one who would be less tender of his honor, and less reluctant to surrender, or less difficult to be deprived of a bride, too transcendently beautiful to bless the arms of a subject, even if he were the noblest ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... Abb's Head," was the reply, shouted at the top of the man's voice, that it might be heard, for in the din and roar it was difficult to ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... two styles of loom are not distinguishable by the weave alone, and it is true that the low-warp looms were used in France when the manufacture of tapestries was permanently established by the Crown about 1600. So difficult is it to determine the work of the two looms that weavers themselves could not distinguish without the aid of a red thread which they at one time wove in the border. Yet because the years of the highest perfection in tapestries have been when the high loom ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... day's going proved less difficult than the first. Less difficult means difficult enough! And as yet we had met no one nor anything that remotely favored golden-roofed Cipango, or famous, rich Quinsai, or Zaiton of the marble bridges. Jerez climbed ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... this. The way is too long, and the march too difficult. They will eventually make up their mind to let us ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... be devoted to obtaining practice in jumping various kinds of fences, and in riding up and down hill, over ridge and furrow and difficult ground, which we will deal with in another chapter. A lady should remember to always keep an eye on her mount, and never let her attention be diverted from the order of his going, however much she may be otherwise occupied. To people ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... bruising each other, instead of taking the same pulsation. But there seemed to be no help for them. Irene's jealous guardianship of her freedom, her quick temper, pride and self-will made the position of her husband so difficult that it was almost impossible for ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... senior naval officers with whom that work had made him acquainted:—a certain intimacy, a certain real friendship had indeed grown up between him and some of them. But something old and tired in him made the effort of bridging the gulf between himself and men in their twenties—generally speaking—too difficult. Or he thought so. The truth was, perhaps, as Geoffrey had expressed it to Helena, that many of the younger men who had been brought into close official or business contact with him felt a real affection for him. Buntingford would have thought ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... yet would it not hence follow[1] that there were none, as hee himselfe in effect doth confesse in another place; for speaking concerning our knowledge of the Heavens, hee sayes 'tis very imperfect and difficult, by reason of the vaste distance of those bodies from us, and because the changes which may happen unto it, are not either bigge enough or frequent enough to fall within the apprehension and observation of our senses; no wonder then if hee himselfe bee ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... in truth, not only very difficult for William Fleming to change his view of the complexion of circumstances as rapidly as circumstances themselves changed, but it was very bitter for him to look upon Edward, and to see him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... affected by another's emotion we do practically, though unconsciously, put ourselves in his place; but we are not always able to gauge accurately its intensity or to allow for differences between ourselves and another, and, in the case of pain, it is doubly difficult, as we can never recall the pain itself, but only the mental effects upon us of the pain. We cannot even recall the feeling of heat when we are cold, or vice versa, with any ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... inventive faculty. The reason of my not finishing Christabel is not, that I don't know how to do it—for I have, as I always had, the whole plan entire from beginning to end in my mind; but I fear I could not carry on with equal success the execution of the idea, an extremely subtle and difficult one. ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... heavy, but there was no wind, and the unclouded sky gave promise of a hot day. In the east the rosy flush spread and deepened, and a pink path stretched itself across the fast subsiding waters. The wet sand dragged at their feet, and made walking difficult; moreover Patricia was chilled and weary, so their progress was slow. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and her lips had a weary, downward curve; her golden hair, broken from its fastenings, hung in damp, rich masses ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... of the miniature fight he learned considerable of the ways of fire. The brush proved unexpectedly difficult. It would not stand up to the force of his stroke, but bent away. The tarweed, especially, was stubborn under even the most vigorous wielding of ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... representative could be found for it. It must be stated that, as we had no actresses amongst us, all our female characters, as in the times of the primitive drama, were necessarily performed by gentlemen. Now in general it was not difficult to command a supply of smooth-faced young ensigns to personate the heroines, waiting-maids, and old women, of the comedies and farces to which our performances had been hitherto restricted. But Lady Macbeth was a very different sort of person to Caroline Dormer and Mrs. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the steers, came up the hill: "Whoa, hor, Buck, come yere. Come yere Bright." Mose remarked after a serious effort that the steers must have about all they could pull, and then added that he must be going. Tom asked if he found it difficult to pull himself loose, and his aunt cried out! "Why Thomas." Kintchin's voice was heard again, further off and Mose said he "reckoned" he'd have to be pulled out by the steers. Margaret who had been searching the safe and the "cubbo'd", ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... him), all belong to the semi-bestial class. In spite of the opinion held by some of the most eminent Dante-scholars, that Dante in his classification of sins does not follow Aristotle's grouping of them into incontinent, malicious, and brutal, but recognises the first two only, it seems difficult not to see in this, especially when it is taken in connection with expressions scattered throughout his writings, an indication that in the sins of the seventh circle he found the equivalent of the Greek philosopher's [Greek: theriotes]—the ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... ancient Germany, will strikingly appear from that most valuable picture of their manners which has been left us by Tacitus, (Tac. de Mor. Germ. 16 to 20.) * * * With these manners, and a habit of enterprise and emigration, which would naturally remove all fears about providing for a family, it is difficult to conceive a society with a stronger principle of increase in it, and we see at once that prolific source of armies and colonies against which the force of the Roman empire so long struggled with difficulty, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... as long as their constitutional education was incomplete; that they were not familiarized to the tribune[35]; that they might there disclose opinions or principles, without intending it, that government could not avow; and that it would be inconvenient and difficult, to contradict the words of a minister, while those of a minister of state might be disavowed, without implicating the government, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... question," said the other; "and as you answer I shall read to you your moral horoscope. You have grown in many things more lax; possibly you do right to be so; and at any account, it is the same with all men. But granting that, are you in any one particular, however trifling, more difficult to please with your own conduct, or do you go in all ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... of the Firedrake in South Africa, where he is called the Nanaboulele, a difficult word-has been published in French (translated from the Basuto language) by M. Paul Sebillot, in the Revue des Traditione Populaires. For the Remora, the Editor is indebted to the Voyage a la Lune of M. Cyrano ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... "external work" by making use of the labor of others, but there is no possibility of shirking that inner work. Together with birth and death it has been imposed by nature itself, and each man must accomplish it for himself. This difficult, inevitable labor, this is the "work of ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... depends on agriculture and is highly vulnerable to climatic conditions, notably tropical storms. Agriculture, primarily bananas, accounts for 21% of GDP and employs 40% of the labor force. Development of the tourist industry remains difficult because of the rugged coastline, lack of beaches, and the lack of an international airport. Hurricane Luis devastated the country's banana crop in September 1995; tropical storms had wiped out one-quarter of ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... told them, in the beginning of September the same year, that it would be a south-west wind for two or {375} three months together, and also great store of rain, so that wheat sowing would be very difficult in the Low-fields, by reason of wet; which we have found by sad experience. And further, I told them that they should have not above three or four perfect fair days together ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... for them would be enriched, intensified and ennobled in a fashion it is difficult for us in our spiritual and physical squalor even to imagine. There would be a new renaissance of the arts and sciences. Awakened at last to the proximity of the treasures of life lying all about them, the children of that age would be inspired by a spirit of adventure and ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... is by far the most difficult of all the punctuation marks to use correctly. Usage varies greatly from time to time and among equally good writers and printers at the same time. Certain general rules may be stated and should be learned. Many cases, however, will arise in which the ...
— Punctuation - A Primer of Information about the Marks of Punctuation and - their Use Both Grammatically and Typographically • Frederick W. Hamilton
... into a considerable estuary, opened for the city a capacious harbour, and an excellent although intricate passage to the sea. The city, which was well built and thriving, was so hidden in its labyrinth of canals and streamlets, that it seemed almost as difficult a matter to find Sluys as to conquer it. It afforded safe harbour for five hundred large vessels; and its possession, therefore, was extremely important for Parma. Besides these natural defences, the place was also protected by fortifications; which were as well constructed as ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and good Sense: If Caelia would be silent, her Beholders would adore her; if Iras would talk, her Hearers would admire her; but Caelia's Tongue runs incessantly, while Iras gives her self silent Airs and soft Languors; so that 'tis difficult to persuade one's self that Caelia has Beauty and Iras Wit: Each neglects her own Excellence, and is ambitious of the other's Character; Iras would be thought to have as much Beauty as Caelia, and Caelia as much Wit ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... nice sense of the social proprieties, and he could not bring himself to ignore a girl with whom he had once exchanged easy conversation about the weather. Whenever she came to lay his table, he felt bound to say something. Not being an experienced gagger, he found it more and more difficult each evening to hit on something bright, until finally, from sheer lack of inspiration, ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... improvements of science act upon the moral condition of the world. As soon as amended roads admitted of more rapid movement from place to place, the vocation of the highway robber was at first rendered difficult, and in the end impossible to exercise on the greater thoroughfares. Fast horse-coaches were the first obstacle. Railways have became an insuperable impediment to ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... an equally unexpected and just cause of complaint in that uncertainty of the laws, which rendered his possession of property precarious, and in those incidents of the tenure which rendered its alienation or improvement difficult. But an irritation, greater than that occasioned by the transfer of the large properties, was caused by the competition of the English with the French farmer. The English farmer carried with him the experience and habits of ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Borasdine as we walked away. "They ask ten times the real price and hope to cheat you in some way. It is difficult to buy anything here for its ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... was dispelled. Garratt Skinner had laid his plans for the Brenva route. Somewhere on that long and difficult climb the accident was to take place. The very choice of a guide was in itself a confirmation of Chayne's fears. It was a piece of subtlety altogether in keeping with Garratt Skinner. He had taken a bad and untrustworthy guide on one of the most difficult expeditions ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... southeast, behind which I had observed several houses when we came in with the ship. We had also made inquiry as to the villages through which we would have to pass, and they had told us the Oude Dorp[150] would be the first one we should come to; but my comrade finding the point very rocky and difficult, and believing the village was inland, and as we discovered no path to follow, we determined to clamber to the top of this steep bluff, through the bushes and thickets, which we accomplished with great difficulty and in a perspiration. We found as little of a road above as below, ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... Peter admitted, "but you must remember that, after all, my performances have been no more difficult than those of your shy but accomplished brother. Whenever I took to myself a strange personality I found him there, equally good as to detail, and with his subject always at his finger tips. We settled that little matter of the canal, didn't we?" Peter remarked, ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... infantry on either flank in a widely extended line. We all admired the steady regularity of their marching, heavily weighted as they were. Our own gunners also have a good deal of walking to do. "Dismount the detachment" is the order at all up-grades, and at difficult bits of the road. Drivers dismount at every halt, however short, but on the move are always safe in the saddle. We marched over the same undulating land, with occasional drifts and spruits, which are very hard on ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... difficult to make crooked things straight," said the Vicar, as he walked about the room after his wife had left him. "I suppose she ought to go into a reformatory. But I know she wouldn't; and I shouldn't like to ask her ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... there were no tokens of waking life; the streets were empty, the windows shrouded, and a steady drizzle of rain was falling, which gave promise of a wretched day. Even when the morning advanced, it was difficult to make out the individual buildings; but he had had the Miners' Bank pointed out to him on the previous day, and he thought he recognized it now. It was there that the business which he had proposed to himself was to be effected, and he gazed at it with ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... of course—indeed, it happened "once upon a time." It would be difficult now to verify each point in the account. On the contrary, I suppose it just possible that there may be a mistake as to the transformation of the children's clothes—the change of the sun-bonnets into caps, ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... hand, smiling, and she took it frankly. "I vow you have bewitched me," she said; and then with a laugh, "I break my staff"! she added; "and I must pay you my best compliment. You made a difficult speech. You are as adroit, dear Prince, as I am—charming." And as she said the word with a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Joe always washed his hands and face and rinsed his mouth out with a chemical preparation that would, for a time, resist the action of fire. It was a secret compound, rather difficult to handle and make, and Joe had taught Ted ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... live to spend that money in your pocket, so I've booked two seats on an interplanetary ship," he glanced at the car clock. "It leaves in about two hours so we have plenty of time. I'm hungry, let's find a restaurant. I hope you have nothing at the hotel worth going back for. It would be a little difficult." ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... us: but that of Telford is perhaps the most encouraging and the most remarkable of all, as showing how much may be accomplished by energy and perseverance, even under the most absolutely adverse and difficult circumstances. ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... what conditions were and what we faced I was determined to do something. It was a friend who was kind enough to believe and tell me that I had talent for acting who first interested me in motion picture work. And, not to tire you with long, boresome details, I was lucky. Somehow it was not difficult and I am now receiving enough to keep us comfortable without encroaching, as I said, on what little father ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... the commotion which ensued when I tell you that, in the Filberts, for a man to pluck a flower from a woman's hair means only one thing. Poor Kippy was torn between love of me and what she thought was duty to my chief. I had a most difficult time explaining to her that Triplett meant absolutely nothing by his action, a statement which he corroborated by all sorts of absurd "I don't care," gestures—but he clung to ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... this was where what were called "weeds" were allowed to flourish. Here were the thorn-apple, chenopodium, sow-thistle, wild mustard, redweed, viper's bugloss, and others, both native and introduced, in dense thickets five or six feet high. It was difficult to push one's way through these thickets, and one was always in dread of treading on a snake. At another spot fennel flourished by itself, as if it had some mysterious power, perhaps its peculiar smell, of keeping other ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... not be difficult to follow; thus then, at the corner of the Hotel des Tournelles, opposite the Hotel ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... be difficult," answered Donna Tullia, although she knew very well that she would receive Giovanni kindly enough when she had once had an opportunity of speaking her ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... and How to Cook it: containing over One Thousand Receipts, systematically and practically arranged, to enable the Housekeeper to prepare the most Difficult or Simpler Dishes in the Best Manner. By Pierre Blot, late Editor of the "Almanach Gastronomique" of Paris, and other Gastronomical Works. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 16mo. pp. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... try, as much as hospitality permitted, to confine his visits to a few ceremonious calls; but he persisted in coming almost every day, and walked in past the girl with that quiet sort of authority which it is so difficult to resist. In the same way he took possession of Mary and me. He was sure it must be very dull for both of us; therefore he was going, if we would pardon the liberty, to offer his services as reader, while my nurse went out for a ride or a walk. Couldn't I sit out under the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... on the dark side of things, and forgetting the ultimate advantage to be derived, considers only the partial and trivial annoyances that necessarily attend its completion. The duties dictated by reason are the only duties that remain: it is difficult to separate these entirely from natural duties; perhaps I may be allowed to call "Prayer" or "Thanksgiving to God" a reasonable duty, (for it is not a natural one, or the brutes would practise it ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... encouraged Epstein to enlarge on this congenial theme. He now fully realized that Devon would go his own gait until he wearied of it, and that no argument or persuasion could enter his armor-clad mind. The position of Bangs was a difficult one, for while he was accepting and assimilating this unpleasant fact, Epstein and Haxon—impatient men by temperament and without much training in self-control—were getting wholly out of patience and therefore out of hand. Haxon, indeed, was for the time ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... be difficult to forget the effect of that first view of le Folgoet. The high hedges on either side had concealed everything. These fell away, and within a few yards of us, in a barren and dreary plain uprose the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... Those were not difficult questions to answer. In either of the above hypothetical cases the boy would be absolutely in the power and at the mercy of the two men; and I shuddered to think of what would happen to him, with me out of the way. Svorenssen and Van Ryn were ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... glance at Aunt Susan's contented face gave me the tonic I needed. Father died two years later, and as I was campaigning in California I was not with him at the end. It was a comfort to remember, however, that in the twilight of his life he had learned to understand his most difficult daughter, and to give her credit for earnestness of purpose, at least, in following the life that had led her away from him. After his death, and immediately upon my return from California, I visited my mother, and it was well indeed that I did, for within a few months she followed ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... been excited by hearing such piteous cries. People who are unacquainted with the inner life of stables, have no idea of the brutality which many grooms and strappers inflict on the animals in their charge. When we find a horse which is difficult to bridle, owing to the objection he has to allowing his muzzle or ears to be approached by the hand of man, we may be almost certain that this vice has been caused by the application of a twitch, either on his upper lip, or on one of his ears, a method ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... "what you call crawling may in reality be sympathy. I'm sure Miss Battersby has a sympathetic disposition. It is very difficult to draw the line between proper respect, flavoured with appreciative sympathy, and what you ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... anxieties grew upon him so much that his book fell on his knee, and he lost himself in a multitude of small scruples and torments, such as beset all persons who live alone. Were all his days now to be made difficult, because he had followed his conscience, and asked his widowed sister to ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... status of the peoples concerned, as progress in a particular art depends much upon the encouragement given to it by local features of environment. The tribe that had good clay used earthenware and neglected basketry, and the community well supplied with skins of animals did not need to undertake the difficult and laborious task of spinning fibers and weaving garments and bedding. Thus it appears that well-advanced peoples may have produced inferior textiles and that backward tribes may have excelled in the art. Caution is necessary in using ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... are these:—'It is difficult to avoid praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... in God. God is love. Therefore love. Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure. For that is the ceaseless and anonymous ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... they should not run the risk of dining in any private house, without being surrounded by halberdiers and guards. As those who knew anything about the events that night in Don Timoteo's house were for the most part military officials and government employees, it was not difficult to suppress the affair in public, for it concerned the integrity of the fatherland. Before this name Ben-Zayb bowed his head heroically, thinking about Abraham, Guzman El Bueno, [75] or at least, Brutus and other ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... when you pay seven francs a day, tout compris, it comprises everything but the right to look down upon the others. But there are people who, the less they pay, the more they take themselves au serieux. My most difficult boarders have always been those who ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... days there were only the usual few science reporters in the press room of E.H.Q. These held their jobs by the difficult compromise between the scientists' insistence upon accuracy and their ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... is a difficult thing for thee, though descended from a River, to contend with the sons of the most mighty Saturnian [Jove]. Thou saidst thou wert of the race of a wide-flowing River, but I boast myself to be of the race of mighty Jove. ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... artist. "You all know, gentlemen, how difficult it always is to choose a title. In order not to make you wait, I have chosen one which is already well known. My story is to be called 'The husband, the wife, and the lover.' We are not all single men here, and a wise proverb says that one must ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of Philemon; under a relation which it is difficult with accuracy and certainty to define. His condition, though servile, could not have been like that of an American slave; as, in that case, however he might have "wronged" Philemon, he could not also have ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... they told more directly and immediately upon the upper classes, yet permeated more or less through all the strata of society. Among the middle classes, too, there arose a set of men whose influence for good it would be difficult to exaggerate. Foremost among them stands the great and good Dr. Johnson. 'Dr. Johnson,' writes Lord Mahon, 'stemmed the tide of infidelity.' And the greatest of modern satirists does not state the case too strongly when he declares that 'Johnson had the ear of the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... It is no surprise to find such imbecility fall a victim to the power of Parthia; the only wonder is to see it prevailing over the wonted good-fortune of Rome. One scrupulously observed, the other entirely slighted the arts of divination; and as both equally perished, it is difficult to see what inference we should draw. Yet the fault of over-caution, supported by old and general opinion, better deserves forgiveness than that ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the past few minutes had shocked the old man into stupefied silence. It was difficult, almost impossible, for him to believe that Sing had spoken the truth and that this man was not one of the creatures of his own creation; yet from the bottom of his heart he prayed that it might prove the truth, for he saw that his daughter ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... astonishment at his not being able to drive a car. "I shouldn't have the nerve," he had replied. "My nerves are all wrong—and I shouldn't have the strength to change tyres and things."... If his chauffeur went, he would find it very difficult to get another. Who would ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... is little use in going before a committee. I can see that you do not need any advice, and my own part shall be to remain in the background, content to support the most competent man that could have been chosen to grapple with a very difficult crisis.' ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... at all difficult, and selecting one of many stores he ascended by an elevator to the top floor and from there mounted an iron stairway leading to the flat roof. As he climbed this stairway he found himself followed by a pleasant looking young man, ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... They were silent for some time, he smoking his cigar with a furious impatience, as if he could hasten the course of the vessel by his own restlessness; she looking out at the waning light with melancholy blue eyes—eyes that seemed to have faded with poring over closely-printed books and difficult needlework; eyes that had faded a little, perhaps, by reason of tears secretly shed in ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... rudder now and then, and with a willing listener there is no limit to the domain of equivocal speech. Sometimes Miss M'Glashan made a freezing sojourn in the parlour; and then the task seemed unaccountably more difficult; but to Esther, who was all eyes and ears, her face alight with interest, his stream of language flowed without break or stumble, and his mind was ever fertile in ingenious ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... themselves—and Marx in particular—who confirmed me in it, or, more correctly, who prevented me from distinctly perceiving the basis upon which interest essentially rests. To tear oneself away from long-cherished views is in itself extremely difficult; and when, moreover, the men who attack the old views base their attack point after point upon error, it becomes only too easy to mistake the weakness of the attack for impregnability in the thing attacked. Thus it happened with me. Because I saw that what had been hitherto advanced against ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... SERA BON. The en refers apparently to the divers qualities of Dorante which Lisette has just enumerated, though it is difficult to see the ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... has come and gone and now we settle down to the real life of the winter. Plans innumerable are under way for winter activities, and the children are on tiptoe over the prospect of approaching Christmastide. Their jubilations fill the house, and writing is even more difficult than usual. ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... son of Nectan," said Laeg, "and there is not one in the world with whom it is more difficult to contend both in other respects and chiefly in this, that there is but one weapon wherewith he may be slain. To all others he is invulnerable. That weapon is an iron ball having magic properties, and no man knows where ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... customs so incredibly eerie and fantastic that a sober narration of them is more likely than not to be greeted with a shrug of amused disbelief. One who has no first-hand knowledge of the Sumatran tribes finds it difficult to accept at their face value the accounts of the customs practised by the Bataks of Tapanuli, for example, who, when their relatives become too old and infirm to be of further use, give them a pious interment ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... which had rested upon his so curiously, haunted him. He was desperately anxious to see her again. If he refused this invitation, if he rejected Mr. Fentolin's proffered friendship, it would be all the more difficult. ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... obscurity that comes of over-condensation. He omitted it, I think, because of its obscurity. Its general meaning is plain enough—that custom helps the man who tries to assume a virtue, as well as renders it more and more difficult for him who indulges in vice to leave it. I will paraphrase: 'That monster, Custom, who eats away all sense, the devil of habits, is angel yet in this, that, for the exercise of fair and good actions, he also provides a habit, a suitable ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... niece, by the resolution he had been compelled to adopt, of departing for the Crusade before accomplishing his marriage, in the terms of the precontract already entered into. He was conscious that it would be difficult to reconcile the good lady to this change of measures, and he delayed some time ere he could think of the best mode of communicating and softening the unpleasant intelligence. An interval was also spent in a visit to his nephew, whose state of convalescence ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... for it is a singular fact that the scream of the cougar, like the roar of the lion, seems to come from any or every side. It is difficult to tell in what direction the animal is who utters it. Whether this illusion be produced by the terror of the listener is a ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... travel and communication, of course, were few and difficult. The roads were bad and dangerous. In France, Germany and Italy there were so many forms of government, dukedoms, baronies, marquisates, signories, city republics, each with its own custom regulations, not to speak of each having its own coinage and language, ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... social. He was the friend of Longfellow, Lowell, and Whittier; he was the friend of laborers and fishermen. In society he liked to encounter men of wealth and influence, for he had by nature, and also learned from Alexander von Humboldt, some of the arts of the courtier. 'It would be difficult,' says Dr. Charles D. Walcott, [Footnote: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 50. 217 (1908).] 'to measure his influence in the way of causing men of political and commercial power to realize that the support ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... approach of the enemy would put a stop to the successful little forays made by Shanter in search of eggs and chickens; and the task of milking the cows, which marched up slowly morning and evening, might easily have been made too difficult or terminated ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... be assault and battery, with intent to commit murder, conviction for which would mean imprisonment for a term of years. If self-defence could be established—and owing to the fact that neither Dic nor Rita was to testify, that would be difficult to accomplish—Dic would go free. These enormous "ifs" complicated the case, and Dic was detained in jail till Doug's fate ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... service, Graham explaining as he went along what we were to do. Every one was most reverent and all knelt. There were four hymns, and how they enjoyed the singing of them! It was surprising how well they got on. The women all said, "Good-morning, marm," as they entered the church. At first it was difficult to understand what they said, but now I am more able to do so. On our way home we met Betty Cotton, who said, "It's the best 'Sunday' I have had since Mr. Dodgson left." She is a dear old body, and is making it her mission to ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... one of which seems inconsistent with God's Omnipotence, and the other with His beneficence. If God, it was said, is perfectly wise and good, evil must arise from some independent and hostile principle: if, on, the other hand, all agencies are subordinate to One, it is difficult, if evil does indeed exist, if there is any such thing as Evil, to avoid the impiety of making ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... children, and ate and drank, and forgot what it was; what awful reason had driven us out of our homes. These were not, oh let no one think so! the majority; but there were some, it cannot be denied; and it was difficult for me to calm down Bonne Maman, and keep her from sending them away with their babes. 'But they are miserables,' she said. 'If they were to wander and be lost, if they were to suffer as thou sayest, where would be the harm? I have no patience with the idle, with those who impose ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... herd of cows, and five-and-twenty of them fell victims. In July, 1813, a mad dog broke into the menagerie of the Duchess of York, at Oatlands, and although the palisades that divided the different compartments of the menagerie were full six feet in height, and difficult, or apparently almost impossible to climb, he was found asleep in one of them, and it was clearly ascertained that he had bitten at least ten of ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... difficulties, and the Retreat moral obstacles, and left his soul desiring the highest, keen to see it, and free to embrace it. The thought that he would have to tell Isabel appeared to him of course painful and difficult; but it was swallowed up in the joy of his conversion. He made an arrangement with Father Robert to be received at Cuckfield on Easter Eve; so that he might have an opportunity of telling Isabel before he took the actual step. The priest told him he would give him a letter ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... answer this, as I know you find writing difficult. I hope to be getting some leave soon: we can have a talk then. How goes the arm? ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... but in the whirl of her emotions, thought was very difficult, almost impossible. She felt that she had been deceived and betrayed; and that her situation was critical and perilous in the extreme. What should she do? to whom should she appeal? how should she escape? where should ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... all; no wit, no fun, no frolic humour had Mr. Dimond:—no grace, no dignity, no real unaffected elegance of mien or behaviour had his predecessor, David,—whose partiality to my fastidious husband was for that reason never returned. Merriment, difficult for him to comprehend, made no amends for the want of that which no one understood better;—so he hated all the wits ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... that?" demanded the editor, sharply. He found it somewhat difficult to be severe with this poet, for the man admitted so much so readily, and would not defend himself. Had he only blustered and grown angry and ordered them out, instead of sitting helplessly there rocking to and fro and picking at the back ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... successfully imitate the dress and surroundings of the old noblesse. But this gift, which showed so conspicuously in the family of the Sidneys, is an inheritance, and cannot be really copied. It is so easy to patronise from a lofty vantage ground, so difficult to make those below it feel that the distance is not thought of as an impassable gulf, but is bridged over by the true politeness which lies not on the surface, but has its root deep in the consideration ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... It is somewhat difficult to ascertain how far these laws were enforced by the various Emperors. Besides, we are only concerned with the spirit which inspired them. The State considered itself the protector of the Church, and in this capacity placed its sword at the service of the orthodox faith. ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... stopped in represents. The adversary plays to knock that disk out and leave his own in its place—particularly if it rests upon the 9 or 10 or some other of the high numbers; but if it rests in the "10off" he backs it up—lands his disk behind it a foot or two, to make it difficult for its owner to knock it out of that damaging place and improve his record. When the inning is played out it may be found that each adversary has placed his four disks where they count; it may be found that some of them are touching chalk lines and not counting; and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... carriage whip we determined the depth of the hole, and proceeded to cut through to the bottom. This was quite a job, for the oak was tough, and the position difficult. Tommy had ascended the tree, and proclaimed loudly the first signs of daylight as the axe bit through. Mine happened to be the axe work; so when I had finished a neat little orifice, I swung up beside Tommy, and the Invigorator drove out ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... another thing to get out again, for the Northern prisoners were very strictly watched. Some extraordinary opportunity was needed to make the attempt with any chance of success, and this opportunity not only did not present itself, but was very difficult to find. ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... a pretence of reflecting—then fell to reflecting seriously; but the negative was ultimately as undisturbed as ever: she could not decide on anything she would like best in the world; it was too difficult, too sudden. ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... go out like that, so quietly, after asking for help and nobody to say a word for you! I've been hoping ever since that I'd see you so that I'd be able to tell you. Of course," she added, in the tone of one who makes reasonable allowances, "of course, Mr. Selby's in a difficult position; he has to consider the authorities. Naturally, being our consul, he'd like to do his best for all Americans; but he has to be careful. You ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... "It is difficult to keep illusions on any subject in Paris," answered Lucien as they turned in at his door. "There is a tax upon everything—everything has its price, and anything can ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... occur were perhaps composed before 300 B.C.[335] About that date Megasthenes, the Greek envoy at Pataliputra, describes two Indian deities under the names of Dionysus and Herakles. They are generally identified with Krishna and Siva. It might be difficult to deduce this identity from an analysis of each description and different authorities have identified both Siva and Krishna with Dionysus, but the fact remains that a somewhat superficial foreign observer ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Sowerby, lieutenant in the Mounted Infantry, was in a difficult situation, out of which he was little likely to come with credit—or his life. It is a dangerous thing to play with fire, so it is said; it is a more dangerous thing to walk rough-shod over Oriental customs. A man ere this has lost ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Mrs. Jackson, Mrs. Stuart, Winnie Davis, and myself, Mr. Harris was invited to stand in line, but declined. It would be difficult to imagine him as standing with a receiving party, shaking hands with the public. He was asked to speak, but that was even less to be expected. The nearest he ever came to making a speech was once when ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... very well, uncle, and I have no criticism to make. What's over is over. But when you speak of my duty to you, I think of how mother died so young, and how I found out afterward her affairs were so difficult. I had no idea—she sacrificed herself for me so long that I took it for granted. But I think that you, as a business ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... 45. This is a difficult verse, and I am not sure that I have understood it correctly. Gantavyam is explained by Nilakantha as connected with paramavyaktarupasya. According to Nilakantha, this means that thou shouldst go to, i.e. conquer, and identify thyself with, the param or ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... six months the boy was able to solve the most difficult problems in counterpoint. He learned to know Mozart's music, and tried to write with more simplicity of style. A piano sonata, a polonaise for four hands and a fantaisie for piano belong to this year. After that ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... doubtful whether any artist—certainly no French artist—ever received more attention and honors, or was made a member of so many art academies, than Mme. Lebrun. It would be difficult to make any comparison between her and Rosa Bonheur, their respective spheres of art being so different. Only the future will speak as to the relative positions of ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... money might still be made there—people began to say also that Michel Voss had been wrong to allow his son to leave Granpere. But in truth there had been a few words between the father and the son; and the two were so like each other that the father found it difficult to rule, and the son found it difficult ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... must be difficult to please if this place doesn't please you or come up to your requirements, Damaris," he said, presently sitting down beside her. "No Arabian Nights palace in Asia, I grant you; yet in its own humbler ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... declares she will sign nothing. As long as it is her interest to provide herself with pecuniary resources for the future, she verbally engages to go on. When it ceases to be her interest, she plainly threatens to leave off at a week's notice. A difficult girl to deal with; she has found out her own value to me already. One comfort is, I have the cooking of the accounts; and my fair relative shall not fill her pockets too suddenly if I ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... more practicable suggestion," said Arthur. "As to setting them free, they could not remain in Virginia afterward if I were willing to do so: there is a law against it. Colonizing them would be equally difficult, for the most of them would refuse to go to Africa; and if I have not the right to hold them slaves, I certainly have not a right to force them into another country. Some of them would be willing and glad ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... a considerable distance away, that they had attracted notice, and the emigrants had paused and ware surveying them with a wonder which it would be difficult to express. ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... will find it a little difficult to obtain any information round here," he remarked. "There are certain things connected with that young man which may throw a ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of mind, more tender, more subdued, he remarked, at St. Helena, in reply to Las Casas, who with great severity was condemning those who abandoned Napoleon in his hour of adversity: "You are not acquainted with men. They are difficult to comprehend if one wishes to be strictly just. Can they understand or explain even their own characters? Almost all those who abandoned me would had I continued to be prosperous, never perhaps have dreamed of their own defection. ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... there are thinkers who make this claim, the idea does not find ready acceptance among theologians, either Eastern, or Western. Neither do philosophers, as a general thing incline to adopt this view. The reason for this general disinclination is not difficult of discovery. It is due to the present state of ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... in the 13th century, had fallen into abeyance. In the anthology known as Tottel's Miscellany, first pub. in 1557, 96 pieces by W. appear along with 40 by Surrey, and others by different hands. W. has less smoothness and sweetness than Surrey, but his form of the sonnet was much more difficult as well as more correct than that invented by the latter, and afterwards adopted by Shakespeare, and his lyrical ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... Philosopher or hero, sighs in vain. Account for this prerogative in brutes: No day, no glimpse of day, to solve the knot But what beams on it from eternity. O sole and sweet solution! that unties The difficult, and softens the severe; The cloud on Nature's beauteous face dispels, Restores bright order, easts the brute beneath, And re-enthrones us in supremacy Of joy, e'en here. Admit immortal life, And virtue is knight-errantry no more: Each virtue brings in hand a golden dower Far richer in reversion: ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... a little embarrassing for Lord FISHER to sit still and hear his praises thus chanted. But it is difficult to escape from the seat over the Clock without treading upon other people's toes, and this Lord FISHER is notoriously averse from doing. The moment, however, that Colonel CHURCHILL had finished he left the Gallery; but before he could wholly emerge he had to suffer ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... any inherent reason why this process should be delayed till some far-off future. There is no reason why we should not commence at once. No doubt our inherited and personally engendered modes of thought make this difficult, and by the nature of the process it will be only when all our thoughts are conformed to this principle that the complete victory will be won. But there must be a commencement to everything, and the more we habituate ourselves to live in that Center of the Innermost where conditions do ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... times that seemed to be times of question and of struggle with her, when she vacillated between the old cordiality and the later alienation; when she went beyond the former, or lapsed into moods colder and more repellent than the latter. It would have been difficult to mark the moment when these struggles ceased altogether, and an evening passed in unbroken kindness between them. But afterwards Colville could remember an emotion of grateful surprise at a subtle word or action ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... Esquimau dog will do more work, and with less food, than any other draught animal existing. On the night of the 20th Lieutenant Schwatka observed a meridian culmination of the moon, which showed in latitude 67 deg. 32 min. 42 sec. north, only three miles from our reckoning. It is a difficult task to make astronomical observations with a sextant in a temperature thirty-eight degrees below zero, or seventy below the freezing-point, as it was this night. It is not pleasant to sit still for any length of time in such weather. A thin skim of ice over the surface of the kerosene oil used ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... and undertook to add to his other labours that of visiting the prisoners confined there. It was melancholy, and on the whole monotonous work, for the persons whom he thus attended, were mostly stupid, ignorant beings on whose hardened souls it was difficult indeed to make the slightest impression. They listened sulkily to what the chaplain had to say, but to all appearance neither understood nor cared about a single word, and he had the disappointment of noticing, week after week, and month after month, scarcely a sign of ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... was anxious to occupy the Roman states with Sardinian troops immediately after the Pope's flight, when his subjects still recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned because this policy was opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in the ministry. It would have been a difficult role to play; Sardinia, while endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become its instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but his forecast of what would happen if it were not ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... one o'clock and had a cold lunch, sitting in our wagon, while Peter Crow wakened up and watered the ponies. We did not get on so well in the afternoon. The trail descended into low-lying ground where travelling was very difficult. I had to admit old Peter Crow was quite invaluable. He knew, as Kate had foretold, "all the dry spots"—that is to say, spots less wet than others. But, even so, we had to make so many detours that by sunset we were little more ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... nine dollars, the four sheep at only six dollars, and it had been difficult "dickering" the fifteen pounds of wool and the two bushels of barley as worth three dollars more. The extra two bushels of barley went for their keep overnight. Such was produce exchange ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... few moments, as if considering what she should do. I need not tell you, for you know that nothing is so difficult to explain—nothing so contradictory as the feelings and wishes of the human heart. A few moments since she would have thought that if she could accompany her husband she should be perfectly safe—that his presence would obviate every danger ere it arose. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... sat in contemptuous silence for a few minutes while the Duke spoke, and then replied. There was a squabble between them, and an evident inclination on the part of the majority present to refuse the charter, but the address of the Commons with the King's answer were read, which presented a very difficult case to act upon. The King's answer amounted very nearly to an engagement to grant a charter; the Privy Council was bound to decide without reference to the address and answer, and the bias there was to advise against the grant. Brougham, after ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... a permanent character have been introduced into appropriation bills, and it is often difficult to determine whether the particular clause expires with the temporary act of which it is a part or continues in force. It has also frequently happened that enactments and provisions of law have been introduced into bills with the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various |
